March 28, 2011

Siegebusters rejects a Center-controlled forum... and the Center announces a forum

According to Siegebusters reps: on March 3rd, Siegebusters met with Glennda Testone. Hoping to let the Center back out of its corner, Siegebusters reps said they would be amenable to a community forum rather than the Israeli Apartheid Week fundraiser they'd planned. Their terms: that they would plan the agenda, that the event would be open to the media, and that it would still be a fundraiser.

Testone was not agreeable to those terms. Reportedly, she said that the Center would have to control the content, no media would be allowed in because that violated the "folksy way" of the Center, and that fundraising could happen, but not as the overt intent of the event.

With no resolution in sight, plans for protest at the LGBT Center (not organized by Siegebusters) went forward. The next day, Gay City News ran an announcement of the Center's plan to hold a public forum. True to Testone's word, the Center forum was planned without input from Siegebusters, the individuals and groups involved in organizing the protest, or those who had written to the Center to object to everything that had happened so far.

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